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I'm one of those people: I'm not actually a scientist, but I studied mathematics and build my own agent-based macroeconomic models (amongst other things). I am

by qubex 9y ago

I'm one of those people: I'm not actually a scientist, but I studied mathematics and build my own agent-based macroeconomic models (amongst other things). I am also a fairly autodidact programmer, meaning my code is an ungodly spaghettified mess that can be used to scare small children. I am very much aware that my ‘programs’ are of the “big untidy spaghetti script” variety, and I simply consider them a kind of work-in-progress, notepad, or prototype for later professional implementation. I also have a couple of professional programmers (cough ahem, coders, they desire to be referred to as coders) that are entirely adept at taking my horrid final ‘thing’ and converting it into production-quality code that doesn't take down the enterprise (with the same tools I use, incidentally: Mathematica, Python (>3.3) including SymPy and NumPy, and ABAP/SQL/Java for interfacing with the SAP ERP system). The important part of this is that I never be under any illusion that I something that I toss together and make capable of ‘running’ be definitive code that can be put into production or used as-is, and that under no circumstances must the coders have any bright ideas about fudging the underlying mathematics.

knolan 9y ago
> The important part of this is that I never be under any illusion that I something that I toss together and make capable of ‘running’ be definitive code that can be put into production or used as-is, and that under no circumstances must the coders have any bright ideas about fudging the underlying mathematics. But there should be some cross germination between you and your coders? You must have learned ways to make your spaghetti code less cumbersome for them and they probably have learned something about the underlying economics so that they know what it is you’re doing and how to keep everything to your needs. Similarly you’re not reinventing the wheel each time so you must be using tools developed by them more and more as time goes on?
- qubex 9y ago
  Most definitely. We communicate and collaborate and to a certain degree cross-pollinate (mainly I learn, there’s not so much extra macroeconomic depth to add)... but what I was emphasising was the clarity about the separation of rôles.
  - knolan 9y ago
    That's great. It sounds like a practical and productive setup.
mac01021 9y ago
I'm no economist, but I am very interested in learning about agent-based macroeconomic models. Can you share any pointers on where to start?
- qubex 9y ago
  There’s plenty resources on the web, it’s a fairly mainstream discipline (at least amongst the younger generation). Depending on your inclinations with regards to platform, I suggest you start with one of the following resources: (1) For Mathematica (albeit very dated) I suggest _Simulating_Society_ by Gaylord & D’Andria (1998) http://www.wolfram.com/books/profile.cgi?id=3736 http://www.wolfram.com/books/profile.cgi?id=3736 (2) For Python, I suggest you start with the github repository _Agent_Based_Complete_Economy_ available at https://github.com/AB-CE/abce https://github.com/AB-CE/abce

by qubex 9y ago

knolan 9y ago

> The important part of this is that I never be under any illusion that I something that I toss together and make capable of ‘running’ be definitive code that can be put into production or used as-is, and that under no circumstances must the coders have any bright ideas about fudging the underlying mathematics. But there should be some cross germination between you and your coders? You must have learned ways to make your spaghetti code less cumbersome for them and they probably have learned something about the underlying economics so that they know what it is you’re doing and how to keep everything to your needs. Similarly you’re not reinventing the wheel each time so you must be using tools developed by them more and more as time goes on?

qubex 9y ago
Most definitely. We communicate and collaborate and to a certain degree cross-pollinate (mainly I learn, there’s not so much extra macroeconomic depth to add)... but what I was emphasising was the clarity about the separation of rôles.
- knolan 9y ago
  That's great. It sounds like a practical and productive setup.

mac01021 9y ago

I'm no economist, but I am very interested in learning about agent-based macroeconomic models. Can you share any pointers on where to start?

qubex 9y ago
There’s plenty resources on the web, it’s a fairly mainstream discipline (at least amongst the younger generation). Depending on your inclinations with regards to platform, I suggest you start with one of the following resources: (1) For Mathematica (albeit very dated) I suggest _Simulating_Society_ by Gaylord & D’Andria (1998) http://www.wolfram.com/books/profile.cgi?id=3736 http://www.wolfram.com/books/profile.cgi?id=3736 (2) For Python, I suggest you start with the github repository _Agent_Based_Complete_Economy_ available at https://github.com/AB-CE/abce https://github.com/AB-CE/abce